Go Down the Rabbit Hole and Follow the Buyer’s Journey.

Many companies are living in a fantasy world in which they are not personalizing messaging to provide the right message to the right target at the right time. As a consumer yourself, you know how many messages are bombarding you daily (and how many you immediately write off, ignore, delete, etc.).

You need to go down the rabbit hole to truly understand your customers and only then can you build up to tailor your campaigns to them. The first step is to detail your targets, triggers, and key messages. Then, personas are crafted to personify your targets. This action will lead to campaign creation to reach your personas through their buyer’s journey to provide relevant messaging when they need it.

What is the Buyer’s Journey?

The Buyer’s Journey helps you understand where prospects are in their buying cycle.

So, how can you tailor messages to be relevant? If a prospect has not recognized that they have a problem, then they will ignore your ‘buy now’ messaging. If they know they have a problem and are not sure of the solutions, then a message of how to address the issue will resonate with them.

Let’s use Alice in Wonderland as an example to show how you tailor your messages through these stages:

Alice – Awareness Stage

When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she expresses her problem of needing to go home. She does not yet know what her options are, so she is still in the Awareness stage at the beginning of her journey. Companies trying to solve her problem (i.e. travel, transportation) should focus on providing neutral, third party information (such as white papers, research, or eBooks) to help educate Alice about her symptoms and pain points. She is not yet ready to make a final decision and needs to hear words like “troubleshoot, issue, and resolve” to help her move to the consideration stage.

Cheshire Cat – Consideration Stage

The Cheshire Cat has clearly defined and given a name to his problem, and he voices this issue to Alice. He tells Alice that most everyone in Wonderland is mad. He is not able to offer up any solutions or options to cure this madness when Alice states that she doesn’t want to hang out with mad people, so he is in the consideration stage. The Cheshire Cat would respond to research, guides, or videos that show options for solutions of correcting the sanity in the land.

Queen of Hearts – Decision Stage

The tyrannical Queen of Hearts has decided how she wants to solve all of her problems…of course by taking off their heads. If you are in the scythe or guillotine business, you will target prospects like the Queen of Hearts in this Decision Stage with messaging on how your business can solve their problems. Comparisons to the competition, information on your product details, and other company specific data can help these prospects make their final decision.

As you can see, by changing your message based on where your persona is in the Buyer’s Journey, you can cut through the clutter by directly addressing their current understanding. Marketing automation can help you automate and personalize your messages to these groups as well with fewer touch points from you.